Will pay $150 for skin of Witchcraft

[Serenity]

Heya Serenity,

You may want to change your time of day in your arena setup section to give better screenies of the work.  A lot of the detail is missing due to excess shadow.  I would suggest taking your screenies with the sun shining on that particular section you are wanting to highlight to the forum.

Give us a shot of a closeup on the wing and fuselage so we can see the riveting and panel line detail.  A closeup on the nose section.  Closeup on the tail section where the red section is.  Generally any shot that shows identifiers as this aircraft being Witchcraft for Brooke to look at. 

We know this is just a preliminary look at the skin.  These are just suggestions for shots once the fine tuning and critiquing begins.  You mentioned something about losing some detailing once you converted it to indexed color.  There are programs that we use that will absolutely minimize that in your conversion.  If you do not have a program like Bright (or others) and are just converting from your rastering program, then let us know.  I would be happy to help with anything like that (and I know others would as well.)

If something just doesnt look right.  Then it isnt right    The Nowotny 262 was 200 hours of "somethings not right."  Now, I have to go through that whole process again with the updated 262 coming out 

Anyways, hope you arent looking at this as an attack.  Im sure any in this forum would be more than happy to offer suggestions or help with issues.  Just let us know.

ReDhAwK

Yeah, Im just converting it with GIMP and that is really KILLING the detail on this. I would love any help. Its strange, because as I mentioned before, I didn't have this issue at all with my Bf-109s...

[Serenity]

Alright, I cannot really see too straight anymore, so Im going to call it a night here. Here is what I've got on her as of this last update:

(Note: All oil-stain weathering has been removed. It was just a temporary thing anyway, a place holder, but it was too detrimental to the skin IMHO)


















And therein squats the toad:

Due to the stretching over the nose Audre comes out like this:



I really don't know what to do about this. I've tested it and even single pixels get stretched and bent right there. So... any suggestions as to how to proceed? Just put a big yellow splotch? Leave it out all together? Or, (And I REALLY don't like this one) abandon the skin?

[Lord ReDhAwK]

Hell No! Dont abandon the skin!   

Much better on the skin screenies IMO.  Still a little to be desired on the forward fuselage noseart side (still shadowed.)  But hey!  Can see the reds now

OK, this is whatcha need to do with the index conversion bud:

o  Go to Simmerspaintshop and download a program called Bright.  This is a bitmap conversion utility that will generate a 1mb indexed bitmap from your work. 

o  All you have to do is Save As .Bmp and save it in the Bright folder.  Double click the batch file inside that folder and it will generate the indexed bitmap.  You should lose little to none of the detail during the conversion process.

o  Remember to NOT overwrite your original Gimp file with the layering (we all have done it.)  Just save that gimp file as a new bitmap 

Insofar as Audre and stretching.  It unfortunately cannot be placed with that type of stretch.  I would suggest ommitting it rather than placing a yellow splotch.  I hate that it has to be that way, as its a very important piece IMO to the identity of Whitchcraft, but what must be must be 

If you run into any problem converting this thing bud, just zip up the original bitmap you make and e-mail it to me.  I will convert it and send it back to you.  Im playing Golf this late afternoon but can have it back to you around 8:30 or 9pm Eastern time.

I look forward to see the overall weathering you do on her.

edit...I just noticed that there is also a mirroring problem on the stenciling on the inside portion of the rear stabilizer.  I'd suggest losing it.  How much dang mirroring is on this thing!...edit

ReDhAwK

[Serenity]

Hell No! Dont abandon the skin!   

Much better on the skin screenies IMO.  Still a little to be desired on the forward fuselage noseart side (still shadowed.)  But hey!  Can see the reds now

OK, this is whatcha need to do with the index conversion bud:

o  Go to Simmerspaintshop and download a program called Bright.  This is a bitmap conversion utility that will generate a 1mb indexed bitmap from your work. 

o  All you have to do is Save As .Bmp and save it in the Bright folder.  Double click the batch file inside that folder and it will generate the indexed bitmap.  You should lose little to none of the detail during the conversion process.

o  Remember to NOT overwrite your original Gimp file with the layering (we all have done it.)  Just save that gimp file as a new bitmap 

Insofar as Audre and stretching.  It unfortunately cannot be placed with that type of stretch.  I would suggest ommitting it rather than placing a yellow splotch.  I hate that it has to be that way, as its a very important piece IMO to the identity of Whitchcraft, but what must be must be 

If you run into any problem converting this thing bud, just zip up the original bitmap you make and e-mail it to me.  I will convert it and send it back to you.  Im playing Golf this late afternoon but can have it back to you around 8:30 or 9pm Eastern time.

I look forward to see the overall weathering you do on her.

edit...I just noticed that there is also a mirroring problem on the stenciling on the inside portion of the rear stabilizer.  I'd suggest losing it.  How much dang mirroring is on this thing!...edit

ReDhAwK

Thanks! That means today goes on to weathering... where ive got the least skill

But really, thank you so much for that bright thing. Ive downloaded it before, but the instructions looked like another language and I couldn't use it. This makes it so much clearer!

[Serenity]

Alright, Simmerspaintshop didn't have bright, only brighter. So I got brighter. They seem to be the same. I ran it just as you told me, and... it did SOMETHING I think, but it was still RGB, not indexed. So I took the post-brighter image back into GIMP, saw it was still RGB, and converted to indexed from there, and it made it about 10 times WORSE than before! I might need to pass it to you to convert...

[Brooke]

Looks like things are progressing along nicely.

Looking through the various information on coloration of the cowlings, I decided to send an e-mail to Fred Holdrege (CO of the squadron Witchraft was in) and Bob McKenzie (lead pilot of the squadron, who flew Witchcraft once), asking them this:

http://www.electraforge.com/brooke/flightsims/b24_flights/questionsWitchcraft.html

[Brooke]

Serenity, thanks for the progress so far.

A couple of comments to chip in while things are under development:

Could the leading edges be more black and less worn?  I like wear and tear, but the leading edges have more than anywhere else on the plane by a lot, so it probably is best to pull it back some.  (This is just judging from some of the black-and-white pics, like the following, where the leading edge looks more like the shade of the props.)

The gray "wave" shape should probably be a lower and start with the first peak of the wave a little sooner (ignore the question on the pic -- that is for the guys I sent the e-mail to):


There is a "circle P" on the right top wingtip:


I think the bomb-bay doors might have white stripes, like this, but I'm checking on it:


Many thanks, and I'll let you know if I get any responses from my e-mail.

[Serenity]

Could the leading edges be more black and less worn?  I like wear and tear, but the leading edges have more than anywhere else on the plane by a lot, so it probably is best to pull it back some.  (This is just judging from some of the black-and-white pics, like the following, where the leading edge looks more like the shade of the props.)

The gray "wave" shape should probably be a lower and start with the first peak of the wave a little sooner (ignore the question on the pic -- that is for the guys I sent the e-mail to):

The leading edges are an AH default. I havn't touched them yet, thanks for letting me know!

Im not real sure what you mean by the "wave" thing. I THINK your talking about the OD/Grey border. I cannot move it any lower without an akward mirroring on the bottom of the aircraft (By the doors) and what do you mean by peaking earlier?

[mensa180]

WOW!  Just read through your DGS recounts Brooke, nice put together!  If I knew where I put my DGS film I would do that from my view as a 38 escort.  One of the best times I've ever had in this game.  Live for the history in it.

[Fencer51]

Those black leading edges are deicing boots, they would not "chip".

Brooke there was an article in Flypast a while ago on this plane, do you have it?

Also you are looking at photos from several different time periods.  Pick one specific time/photo and use it for the markings.

[Serenity]

Those black leading edges are deicing boots, they would not "chip".

Yeah, not sure why the original AH bird had them...

Brooke, can you get me a better image of that circle P?

[Fencer51]

You ever try Google? 

http://www.silverstatenews.com/Collings_B24_2006_Tour.jpg

http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/decals/mg/images/mg48046p1.jpg

http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/decals/mg/decal_mg48046.shtml

[Brooke]

The leading edges are an AH default. I havn't touched them yet, thanks for letting me know!

Im not real sure what you mean by the "wave" thing. I THINK your talking about the OD/Grey border. I cannot move it any lower without an akward mirroring on the bottom of the aircraft (By the doors) and what do you mean by peaking earlier?

CC, on the leading edges.

Yep, the "wave" is the border between bottom gray and top green.  CC on the mirroring issue.  I was just meaning that, based on this:



maybe something like this (please forgive my poor ability to put a wave on it -- I don't mean exactly like this, of course):



But of course not if it causes mirroring problems.

[Brooke]

Also, there seems a darker patch in front of the pilot's windshield.  I've seen that on B-24's, but I don't know if Witchcraft had that -- very hard to tell from B&W pics.

[Brooke]

For the "circle p", I'd just do one like on this (as I can't find a good real pic of it):